On Set: Rush

“Chris Hemsworth plays the race car driver James Hunt, who was more like a rock star than a modern-day athlete. Today there’s too much money at stake; playboy types either get reined in or weeded out early on. Hunt was the last hurrah of the wild-child sports superstar. We will miss the James Hunts of the world.”

“The scenes we’re shooting here turned out to be the most dangerous of all. The pit is where people in Formula 1 racing get hurt. They can get knocked over or have their foot caught beneath a tire. And there’s just so much noise that it’s hard to step back and evaluate what’s happening. But I really wanted to put the audience into the cars, and the breakthroughs in digital-camera technology in the past five years allowed us to do that.”

“Here’s Chris as Hunt at a gala for up-and-coming drivers. In the scene, Hunt shows both sides of himself: ambitious pro and party animal. Chris brought his own vibe to a character that felt half–professional surfer, half–Jim Morrison. It was the way he moved, I think.”